CountryFlame Little Rascal Pellet Stove problems and more..

[madeagle]

I had a Little Rascal installed in December and have had nothing but problems. I narrowed my stove shopping to businesses with NFI pellet cert installers. The sales person was very knowledgeable but things went downhill from there. Naturally I assumed my installer would be pellet certified. Wrong. Anyway, despite the installer returning to change some of the Duravent and reseal the flue, I still have smoke in the room at startup. A significant amount of soot accumulates on the walls of the fire box. The glass gets smoky after four to six hours. Clinkers build up in the burn pot after 4-6 hours.

The 4 inch flue comes off the lower portion of the rear of the stove into a T followed by 1 foot, a 45, 2 feet, a 45, 9 feet, a 45, 10 inches, a 45, and another 5 feet to exit the roof (2 story house). What is the likelyhood of this venting causing problems?

Occasionally the pellets continue to drop into the burn pot without stopping. There is no feed stop so I need to unplug the unit. Intermittently the unit fails to light.. The hopper does not empty completely so pellets accumulate on the sides. Rather than shut down the unit goes into Highway Patrol Mode. The only way to get it out of this setting is to unplug the unit. Addtionally, I've noticed a 20 degree temp difference between the right and left sides of the unit.

I stopped using the unit because i feel it's unsafe.

The company owner who happens to be pellet certified came out to look at the stove. However, he didn't know which button to pust to turn the stove on and wasn't familiar with the CountryFlame term Highway Patrol Mode. Needless to say, I'm at the point that I want to return the stove and get a refund.

I haven't heard much about CountryFlame. Is it worth more time and energy or did I just get a lemon?

 

[elkimmeg]

I must say the venting sounds convoluted

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Like elk said, thats 4 45's installed, that might be causing enough backpressure to give you issues. What makes me think that might not be the case is all the verticle pipe you have. Is it possible that you ahve a weak combustion blower or the air damper not in the correct setting? if the dealer doesnt want to help call the manufacture and see if you get anywhere. I can tell you that the owner of the company that you bought the stove from might not be the most knowlagable person working for him. Ask them to send someone else out, give them a chance to get the problem resolved. But i havent heard of country flame and i have no idea what kind of quality of stove it is, nor do i know what quality of pellet your burning.